The Last Christmas Cowboy

by Maisey Yates

  Iris got a spatula and slipped them beneath three cookies at once, plopping them onto a plate. She did the same to the rest, and the three of them picked them up.

  “We need milk,” Iris said. “Remember, we would always dip them in milk?”

  They got the milk out and poured three glasses. Then the three of them dipped their cookies and took a bite.

  “This is it,” Iris said, triumphant.

  “It is,” Rose said in wonder, memory flooding through her.

  Of all of them in the kitchen. Logan’s mom having just baked cookies with her mother. Of all the kids, happy, chatting.

  Her eyes filled with tears. “It’s so hard for me to remember them sometimes,” she said. “This makes me remember. The way it was.”

  “Yeah,” Iris said. “Cooking always makes me remember. It’s why I love it so much. It’s how you bring moments, and people, right to the table with you. How you take them out of the past.”

  She looked at her sister, remembering what she had said to her the other night. About how taking care of Rose had helped with her grief. How it had helped make her feel close to their mother.

  “I love you,” Rose said. “You took such good care of me.”

  “I love you,” Iris said. “Just you being there took care of me. Trust me.”

  She wrapped her arm around her shoulders and gave her a squeeze. And Sammy wrapped her arms around both of them, her big pregnant belly bumping up against Rose’s side. “And I love you both. Thank you for adding me to your kitchen. And making me part of your house.” She squeezed them. “I know Logan is grateful for it, too.”

  It all made sense to her then, why their table felt best when it was crowded. Because that was how it had been before. It was why they added people to Hope Springs with such ease. Because happiness had been best experienced there when they’d shared it around.

  Her parents had never been rich people. But they’d been a tight-knit family, with her aunt and uncle, her mom and dad, and Logan’s mother there all the time. Dinner had been a constantly changing affair, with different combinations of them all present at any given time. And sometimes, of course the boys would bring friends, and sometimes there would be more people, sometimes less.

  It had all been family.

  It was easy, sometimes, to think of herself as someone who had lost a lot.

  But right then she felt like someone who had an awful lot, and who had a lot still. Someone whose roots and foundation were so rich and sturdy, that she was lucky. No matter what in her life had hurt.

  Maybe it was just because she was still riding high on the realization that she was living her dream. That happiness had been right in front of her the whole time, and all she had to do was take a little step out in faith.

  Be a little bit brave.

  Quit trying so hard, and just start enjoying what she had.

  That had been the key.

  To stop trying to earn what she had already, and just look at all the blessings that came with it.

  “We have a good life,” Rose said softly.

  “Yeah,” Iris responded. “We do.”

  “I used to wonder why Ryder kept the name of the ranch the same,” Rose said softly. “Why he kept it Hope Springs when it felt like hope died along with our parents. But it didn’t. They left us hope. And hope is what kept us going. They left us cookie recipes and Christmas traditions, and joy taken in big family dinners. They left us each other.”

  “Hope is what keeps you going,” Sammy said. “That’s what Hope Springs was for me. A beacon in the darkness. The first place I thought I might be able to escape my abusive father. It’s why I came here. Because you all look so happy. And I could see... I could see a way to have a better life here. With you. With your family. Hope is the one thing everyone needs. Without that... Without that, I guess you think nothing could change. That the darkness might be permanent.”

  Rose nodded slowly. And she wondered... She wondered if that’s what Logan felt like. She wondered if Logan saw the hope here.

  She looked at the plate of cookies. And remembered what he’d said. That he could never have them again because his mother was gone.

  And she wondered if he was so determined to remember the loss, that he couldn’t let himself look at any of the things he still had. That he couldn’t let himself accept that while their parents were gone, they lived on in their hearts. In the way Iris cared for them and baked them food, the way that Ryder worked the land and kept the ranch going. The way that Pansy was determined to keep the town of Gold Valley safe, like their father had before her.

  In the brash boldness of Colt and Jake and their rodeo dreams. And in the steady, constant care that Logan gave to everything, even at personal cost, just like his mother had done.

  They hadn’t just been shaped by the losses of their parents, but by their lives. She wondered if he let himself feel that at all.

  “When are you going to give him the cookies?” Iris asked.

  “I’m not going to give him the cookies, I’m going to go over with the cookie dough and I’m going to bake them at his house. After the wedding.” That really did earn her some none-too-subtle stares. “Do you have a question?”

  “None,” Iris said.

  “No. None,” Sammy said.

  “We have to hide these cookies.”

  “Well,” Sammy said, laughing, “I have a pretty fair idea where we can hide them. Considering your brother loves cookies. And I imagine Colt and Jake would accept a peace offering in the bunkhouse.”

  “Probably.”

  “I can pester them about their favorite foods, too. I’m thinking keeping some prepared meals at the bakery wouldn’t be a bad idea. And I need to do something to help with the overhead. Lord knows renting on Main Street isn’t cheap. I’m going to need money before I get started.”

  Iris was suddenly so keen and determined, and different from the way Rose had always seen her. Now that Iris had found what she wanted, she was jumping in with both feet.

  It was a lesson to Rose. About assuming she knew everything there was to know about what was in someone else’s heart.

  She felt like she had discovered the world had a whole different dimension to it. It was weird, slightly confronting. But overall, something she was glad she was contending with.

  She was growing. Changing. Sometimes it made her feel a little bit smaller. Sometimes it made her afraid. But mostly, it made her excited for what might come next. Because life was deeper and richer and love was a lot more than she thought it was only a month ago. It made her giddy to imagine what she might know in another month. Or two. In a year.

  All the things she might have discovered by then.

  Who knew that sex and baking cookies could be quite so informative?

  CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

  IT WAS WEDDING TIME. And Pansy had insisted that the men wear tuxedos. Logan was honored to be part of the wedding, as she had insisted that her family be groomsmen. Of course, she didn’t know that he was also the groom’s family. Yeah, he was honored, but things were a little bit more complicated than Pansy realized.

  Also, he didn’t particularly enjoy being in a suit.

  They were all hanging out in the house, and he knew that the Dalton contingent and West’s half brothers were in the barn already. So many people were in the wedding, he wondered if anybody was going to be sitting in the audience.

  He and Ryder were sitting down in the living room, drinking beer. Colt and Jake were seeing to last-minute setup details. And the women were all upstairs, fussing with bridesmaid dresses, hair and makeup. He was sure that Sammy had said something about false eyelashes, but he couldn’t be certain.

  He lifted a beer. “Congratulations. You get to give one away.”

  “Yeah,” Ryder said, taking a drink of beer. “I guess I really did make it.” He laugh
ed. “Of course, then in a few months I’m about to have a baby.”

  “No empty nest for you, I guess,” Logan said.

  “Wouldn’t know what to do with one anyway,” Ryder said.

  “You did a damn fine job,” Logan said. “You had to raise all of us.”

  “Oh, you were mostly raised. Maybe I had to do a bit with the girls. But you guys helped a lot. Iris helped more than she should have had to. And then there was Sammy.”

  “I get the feeling we all supported each other pretty well.”

  “Yeah, I think we did.” Ryder looked at him hard, and Logan felt suddenly uncomfortable.

  “You going to do all this?” he asked.

  “Me?” His stomach tightened. “Not. Not for me.”

  “Why is that?”

  “Just isn’t.”

  “And there’s no other reason why? Because you’re not exactly going out on the town prowling around, and so I don’t think it’s because you don’t have it in you to settle down. In fact, you don’t really seem deficient in any way.”

  “Well, neither did you. You didn’t figure you’d get married.”

  “Right,” Ryder said. “I didn’t. Just takes the right woman, though, sometimes.”

  “Sometimes the woman can be right as anything, but it still doesn’t make you the right man,” Logan said.

  Because when he pictured Rose, all he could think was that she was right in every way.

  He was the one that wasn’t quite.

  “That’s when you figure out how to become the right man, Logan. When she’s worth it.”

  He didn’t say anything. But the fact of the matter was, sometimes the woman was so worth it you had to be man enough to give her the space to find a man who was just as worth it. Sometimes that was the better part of virtue. He knew that Ryder and Sammy were halves of the same whole. And it might have taken them a while to realize that, but Logan had seen it from the beginning. He understood why Ryder had imagined he couldn’t have those things, and didn’t want them.

  Even when he downplayed it, it couldn’t be denied, that Ryder had raised them all. That he had seen them off into life. That he had sacrificed his dreams and everything that he was for them.

  Logan was happy being a rancher. He had never wanted anything more. Ryder’s father and uncle had been his father figures. Ranchers, and their dad had been a cop, too. Those had been his dreams. To be the kind of steady that they’d been.

  Yeah, he hadn’t given anything up.

  Ryder had imagined marriage and kids would be more of the same sacrificing. More of the same work.

  It wasn’t the same for him.

  Not at all.

  “Well. Either way. You did it.”

  “Yep. Probably the happiest a guy whose sister is marrying an ex-convict could possibly be.”

  They both laughed at that. Then a few minutes later, he heard the rustling of fabric, and footsteps on the landing. He turned, and the procession coming down the stairs made his heart go still, then slam hard against his chest.

  Pansy in a wedding gown made even him feel sentimental. And he could tell by the look on Ryder’s face, that his friend wasn’t faring much better. She was like a pocket-sized angel in the flowing fabric, her dark hair loose and falling around her shoulders in waves.

  But then he saw Rose. And after that he couldn’t see anything else. The Christmas-green bridesmaid dress she had on hugged her curves in a way that made him ache. She was just so damned pretty.

  He could hardly stand it. Having restraint around her was damn tough now. He had done it for five years years. Five long years. And then... Then, he’d spent the past month glorying in every fantasy he’d ever had about her. And all he wanted to do now was get up off the couch, pull her into his arms and kiss her. Kiss her because she was there. Because she was his. And he couldn’t do that. So he sat there, drinking his beer, not moving.

  And he could swear he felt Ryder’s gaze boring a hole through the side of his face.

  “Don’t you two clean up nice,” Sammy said, looking them both over openly.

  “We tried,” Ryder said. “For Pansy’s sake.”

  “You didn’t wear a suit for me,” she said.

  “You didn’t want me to.”

  “True,” she said, laughing.

  The girls came closer, and he and Ryder both stood, because it seemed wrong to stay seated in the face of so much beauty. Pansy ran to hug Ryder, who pulled her into his arms and held her tight. But Sammy, he noticed, was staring at him. Rose was too, and he felt damned flattered over the way she was looking at him. But it was difficult to enjoy when he felt essentially pinned to the wall by his friend’s wife.

  “You look great,” Rose said softly.

  “So do you,” he said.

  “You do look good,” Sammy said. “You know, I was down in the barn earlier. And saw all the guys in their suits there. They look a lot like you.”

  No one else heard what Sammy said, except for Rose, who rounded quickly and faced her. “Don’t,” Rose said. “Let Pansy and West have their wedding. Dig into things later.”

  Rose’s defense of him was unexpected, but welcome.

  “That’s fair,” Sammy said, looking between the two of them. “I’m beginning to think there’s a few things that aren’t being talked about right now that maybe should be.”

  “Nothing needs to be talked about between the whole room,” Logan said. “Like Rose said. Especially now.”

  “I’ll behave myself,” she said. “Promise.”

  A promise of good behavior from Sammy wasn’t worth the paper it was printed on, but he would take it. Honestly, if it weren’t for the fact that he cared about Pansy so much, he wouldn’t really mind. He didn’t have anything to say about any of this. Nothing at all.

  And Sammy could pry all she wanted. He might even tell her. It was just that there wouldn’t be a resolution to it. Not the one she was after.

  “We have to all hold on to Pansy’s dress,” Iris said. “It’s going to get dirty.”

  Iris, for her part, looked pretty. She didn’t have the more obvious beauty of Rose, who was curvy and impish and always looked a bit like she was up to no good, which put a man in the mind to get up to no good with her. Granted, that could be the chemistry they had. Pansy, also, was more obviously cute. Petite and springy. Feisty.

  Iris had always been smoother. Taller, and with a more willowy frame. To him, she had always been a bit nondescript.

  Then, she definitely played into that, and in the green bridesmaid dress he could see that there was more green in her eyes than he’d ever noticed before. She would probably be a pretty girl, if she didn’t almost intentionally blend in with the wallpaper.

  But none of them could hold a candle to Rose. Not in his opinion anyway.

  Biased though he was.

  They all gathered pieces of Pansy’s skirt and headed for the door. Then they walked her to the barn, where she took her place. Hidden from any of the guests. Hidden from her groom.

  West was waiting at the front of the barn, along with the pastor. And he knew, having seen it already, that everything inside was decorated in a grand fashion, fit for a Hope Springs wedding. They had frosted fat red cranberries with sugar and strung them around evergreen garlands, and there were Christmas trees all situated throughout the room, lit up with bright white lights, and strung with more of the berries. They’d made popcorn strings too, and he’d enjoyed doing some of those on the floor of his cabin with Rose, who had continually taken bites out of his, resulting in him taking a bite out of her neck, and that had ended in them making love on the floor.

  Yeah, that was a good memory. And not one he particularly ought to have right now.

  They weren’t doing a formal walk down the aisle paired off. There were more men than women, since West was includ
ing his half brothers.

  His and Logan’s half brothers.

  Ryder was walking Pansy down, and then there was his half sister, McKenna, and Sammy, Iris and Rose. When they were all gathered at the back of the barn, a strange tightness overwhelmed Logan’s chest. He thought that it would be fine. That it would feel just...like nothing. Why should it feel like anything? He’d seen Gabe, Jacob and Caleb at school many times over the years. He never met McKenna Dodge, but what did it matter that they shared DNA? It shouldn’t. They didn’t have a connection. But they were right there.

  And there was something strange about it. There was also a certain sameness to their features that it was easy to miss when he was standing next to West, but with all of them there, the collection of blue eyes and build was a bit much to ignore. He didn’t have the same nose as West, but his was similar to Gabe’s, his chin a lot like Caleb’s. And they all had those eyes. The same blue.

  It was McKenna, petite and without some of the physical similarities the rest of them shared, who looked at him sharply. “I don’t think we’ve met,” she said.

  “No,” he responded.

  Sammy was watching the interaction closely, and he saw Rose break away from where she was standing by her sister. She moved beside him.

  “Hi,” she said. “I’m Rose Daniels. I’m Pansy’s sister.”

  “McKenna Dodge. West’s half sister.”

  “I’m Logan Heath,” he said. Because not introducing himself would cause more questions to be raised than not.

  “Nice to meet you, Logan,” she said. She looked like she wanted to say more, but he supposed even in their particular situation it wasn’t the done thing to just ask: who’s your daddy?

  McKenna paired off with Gabe and Jacob for her walk down the aisle. Caleb took Sammy’s arm. Iris linked arms with Colt and Jake. Which left Rose and Logan, and he had to wonder if that was a bit by design. He was starting to think their secret wasn’t all that well-kept.

  West’s brother was already standing next to him, and when they made their way down the aisle and took their places, the first person whose eyes he landed on in the front row was Hank Dalton.